The Forgotten King
by theeventualwinner
Summary: Maglor is faced with a brutal choice; to condemn his brother to Morgoth's torments, or to abandon his oath to reclaim the Silmarils. Either way, will he be able to live with his decision?
1. Chapter 1

The Forgotten King

Are you dead?

Sometimes I hope that you are.

I sit here, in the midst of our forces, our banners fluttering defiant in the morning breeze over the white canvas tents of our camp. Enmeshed in councils of war where our generals preach this tactic, that resistance, to hold the lines here or press forward there; such mechanisms of battle complex yet crude, novel yet repetitive, and they hold my attention little. This golden crown wears heavy on my head, the light shines dull off facets of woven metal, once gleaming proud but now scuffed, imperfect. It never really fit anyway. It was not made for me.

The commanders drone on, moving this battalion here, cornering the enemy there, and I smile, and nod, and make all the kingly gestures I can think of, but inside it's like I'm breeding wastelands, indeterminate clouds of dust looming over skeletons and corroded memories. They lie forgotten; scattered across mournful, barren plains, a graveyard of imagination, its populace of lonely dreams wandering feral. I am surrounded, a constant flux of advisors, courtiers, comrades-in arms, kin, our bickering brothers swirl around me, but I am still alone.

All I can think about is you.

You said you knew what you were doing. I told you, I begged you to stop, to think, to throw aside this reckless hatred, to have patience and trust in your people. You were our king; you didn't have to do this. Someone else could have gone, some other emissary to bring forth your words, your terms. It didn't have to be you.

Gods, I would have gone in your place. You only had to ask. But you didn't, and you wouldn't. I hear whispers that pride runs in the family, like iron flows through blood.

You said it would be all right, you promised me you would come back. And all that time you were speaking the shadows lurked with fatal potential; tainting trust, poisoning hope. And even now, in those moments where it's just me and the night I wonder and I despair.

How could you think he would surrender? Our enemy, the dark Vala, that broiling void of hatred, spewing entropy, cleaving ruin, _how could you think he would surrender?_

And you told me you brought reinforcements. You told me you would be safe. But you lied, like he lied. Crimson splatters across the rocks, golden armour hewn by jagged swords, gnashing teeth. Our soldiers, _my friends_, smashed apart by those fiery demons that laughed through their bloodlust, grinned warped and sadistic as blood drips from iron broadswords, inches limpid through stained chainmail, ruptured cuirasses, cracked hauberks; eye sockets staring blank and hollow into the void. Caught helpless in the ravening, through oil-slick flames and clotting shadow they fought, and they died. In those final screaming moments darkness drowned out the stars.

And he sends word to us, some obscene mouthpiece spitting bile and rotting promises at our feet, at my feet, and all our hopes come crashing down around us. My brother, our king, a prisoner, a thrall of Angband, the plaything of a twisted god and his macabre angels. Unless we surrender, throw away this hopeless war and bow obedient to their infernal majesty, lick the iron-shod boots of tyranny, debase ourselves in vile prostration.

But I swore those words, as you did; in another land, another time, that night running with flames, dripping with viscera. Never to surrender, never to falter from our prize, an oath unbreakable, unforsakeable. Forever we are hounded, it will pulse eternal until oath-breaker fail and be cast into the empty chasm of night, or the end of all days fades out its beat in cold, dread silence.

And this decision is left to me, the next in line, second eldest of the Feanorians. Now king by birthright of our banished people, this responsibility thrust upon me by sneering fate, tragic happenstance. I never wanted this, the duty to rule thrown so brutally down, this abhorrent choice to condemn either our people, or you, my beloved brother, to damnation everlasting before the nightmare lord. This choice I never should have had to make.

So what am I supposed to do?

I know what you would ask of me, what you do ask of me. You ask me to leave you in their hands. Abandon you to the deepest dungeons; their whips that part muscle from bone, knives that slice jagged and crude through skin, gaping livid wounds spilling blood across the thirsty stones. Their vile perversions, knotting scars and groping hands, seething burns collapse to blisters taught and weeping; hot, panting breath billows from eager jaws, foul and sneering and mottled with red.

And there will be no end for you, my brother.

No, they will not let you die, but make you live on in despair, raw and infinite, fair king of the Noldor but a thing for humiliation, for pain.

You force me to do this to you.

And it feels like a part of me is dying; traitor it screams (you're worthless) and breeds squirming maggots of doubt that gnaw and scrape like shrapnel on bone, sowing tendrils of guilt, fever-dreams of shame clawing up through me, (you're pathetic, he is your brother and you did nothing, _you didn't even try_), but I have to, I have to make this choice, and please, please know that it destroyed me to do this (please, Maedhros you have to know, _((traitortraitortraitor))_ no, you have to understand I never wanted this, any of this, but I can't save you and I'm so, so sorry), I have to let you go, to leave you to suffer so we can be free.

((You are made of nothingness, and he deserves the sun))

Sometimes I hope that you've died.

And when my time comes, in the golden halls of Mandos under glimmering starlight we will meet again, and brother I will tell you, tell you over and over again until I hold my heart in my hands, still beating, beating, beating and it's running down my arms, until it bleeds into the gentle grasses and the flowers bloom vermilion, that I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry, and I know there's no words that either of us can say but I'm sorry, I abandoned you, I left you for dead in the hands of your torturers and I can never make that right.

And maybe you will hate me, scream at me, curse me in every language from Valinor to Middle-earth, and I would only stand there and agree. But maybe you will forgive me, and we would smile and talk about the carefree things of old, just sickeningly smile and pretend like it never happened.

I don't know which one is worse.

But brother, please know that I will never forget you. Though fields of churning chaos separate us, though I sit here a king in silver armour; know that it's your crown I wear. Its radiance punches harder my failure, squeezes tighter that knot of guilt hot and throbbing buried so deep down inside, as every step I make, every breath I take should be yours, shining clear under azure skies.

After everything else is gone, kin forsaken and empire crumbled, I will never forget you.

I will never forget what I did to you.

After everything else, I just…

I just thought you should know that.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed this piece. It was inspired by an non-explicit part of The Silmarillion that somehow always resonated very strongly in me; the fact that Maglor had to make the decision to leave Maedhros in the clutches of Morgoth. And I always wondered, how would he make that decision, and live with himself afterwards? Could he? So there's my interpretation.

Reviews always treasured like the Silmarils themselves.

x


	2. 2: You Are My Tragedy

You.

You cannot be here.

No.

_No._

So many times I saw you die.

Over and over again in my dreams I watched you, for eight years I watched in helpless silence, the images dancing livid behind my eyes. A thousand different ways you died before me, all in pain, all in agony (there could be no peace for you, my brother) and sometimes you screamed and sometimes you begged, and sometimes I was there in your place.

You were holding the knife, you were driving it in, and I screamed and I writhed but you smiled, you smiled as the blood splattered across the stones, it poured over your lips as I howled beneath you. And then you grabbed me, hands gripping so tight over my shoulders as you stared, flames burning sick and savage in your eyes, and you hated me, you hated me so much and all I could do was bleed. Then you pulled out the knife, sliding beneath my ribs, gouts of crimson washing to the floor as I hissed and you smiled again, red and black and broken in the firelight and you leaned over me and you whispered, and the words you said cut down to the bone.

((_You deserve this_))

((_You left me to die_))

Half-collapsed to the floor I pleaded, the words fell from my lips and with ragged wings they tried to fly, tried to reach you but they failed, dashed against the stones to perish as blood trickled through my fingers, pressed hard against the gash where your knife had slid.

(I'm trying to hold myself together)

But you turned from me and you picked up the knife again, running its edge already dripping in gore through your fingers, and the light crowned you infernal. You faced me, and I whimpered, legs crumpled beneath me and I tried to force myself backwards, away from you and the knife and your eyes, but I couldn't. I couldn't move. It was your eyes.

You had lightning in your eyes.

And you cut, and you sliced, and I was already bleeding out across the stones but you didn't care, you just wanted to hurt me, wanted to crumple up your pain and throw it away, carve it into someone else, just for one excruciating instant be free. And I closed my eyes, breath shuddering through my punctured lungs, because I am the victim, and I should be, because you know and I know that I did nothing, that this is my punishment. But I couldn't endure, I couldn't do it in silence, but through my screams and my sobs all I could hear was you, what you said left ringing in my ears.

((_This is what you did to me_))

So when they told me you had returned, a young captain bursting into my tent with the message, I ran. I ran faster than I ever thought possible, chill dread thudding through me with each footstep.

(This cannot be true)

And I sprinted through the camp, tearing through clusters of soldiers already turning to stare, their king running like a madman past them, crown nearly tumbling from my head as I vaulted a low stonewall in my path. I raced to the main gates of our camp, boots skidding on the dust, and then outside the fortifications, slipping through the sharpened spikes driven solidly into the dirt, nearly impaling myself more than once in my haste but I didn't care (you are dead, you are dead, you are dead, _I left you to die_), and as I broke from the ring of stakes you were there.

Sliding from the back of the great eagle, clasped so tightly in our cousin's arms, I could only stare; cold shards of denial, of disbelief ripping up through me like splinters of ice. So tenderly he carried you, cradled unconscious in his arms, past where I stood and I think for a moment I stepped forward, to touch you, to make sure that you were real. But as I did, reaching forward with trembling fingers, he looked at me, and there was such sorrow in his dark eyes that I stopped, I recoiled like I had been slapped, crushing blooms of pain, of guilt unfurling in my chest.

(I don't know what to feel anymore)

They rushed you inside, into one of the healers' tents, nurses and squires alike sent running for bandages, for herbs, for water. And numbly I followed, the canvas tent sheets sliding soundlessly under my hand as I entered. In chill horror I watched our cousin lay you across the bed sheets, gently unwrapping you from his cloak under the healer's watchful eyes. And when I saw you, when I saw what they had done I wanted to turn, I wanted to scream, I wanted to walk beneath the blazing sun and just burn away everything that made me whole.

Naked you lay, still mercifully unconscious; body covered in scars and scabbed wounds, whip lines and faded knife scars and shiny pink burns scored over your chest, your stomach, your legs. Across your back they split open, the flesh red and raw and weeping: a flayed mess of skin. A livid brand pulsed from your chest, across your sternum, some vile insignia burned into your skin, knotted and foul and warped with scar-tissue, like cattle stamped, property marked. And you were so thin, all the muscle melted from you, ragged skin stretched taught over bone, shadows clotting in the pale hollows of your ribs, of your hips. And then my eyes caught your arm, that gaping emptiness where your hand used to be, ending in nothing but a stump bound in a crude tourniquet by a rag of cloth, soaked in blood and gore. Tenderly the healer unwrapped the bindings, exposing the raw flesh below, shards of shattered bone gleaming white through seething red, darkened veins lancing up your arm from the trauma, and in sick despair I looked over at our cousin, at Fingon, and the anguish in his eyes said more than words ever could.

And every heartbeat started to hurt, pounding like a drum trying to smash out of my chest.

((_This is all your fault_))

Slowly the nurses returned, herbs and needles and thread and a thousand other things gathered in their hands and tenderly they took you, bathed you, began to stitch back the patchwork whole that I had made you. And I remember Fingon turned me, his hand soft against my arm, walked me outside the tent and to the fields beyond our camp, and numbly I sat there alone beneath the setting sun, sinking crimson and bloody beneath the distant mountains. There were a thousand voices screaming inside my head; mocking, accusing, and I tried so hard to drown them out. I held my head in shaking hands and tried to make them fade into silence, and maybe it worked for a while, but the silence was brooding, it was cold and sinister, and underneath the voices churned and bubbled and cackled their blame.

Eventually I got up, the stars twinkling faintly overhead. I had to go, I had to see you. No matter what I felt I had to. This was my burden. You were my tragedy.

I would not abandon you again.

I reached the tent, the guards moving silently aside to let me pass, and they wouldn't look me in the eye. A lone candle glowed above the bed, like a guardian in the night to dispel the shadow, casting its soft warmth across you as you slept. Softly I walked to your bedside, watching your chest stir in faint, uneasy breaths, ribs sliding under your skin half-covered by the sheets. They had cut your hair short, removing the tangled, matted locks, and brushed it until it hung like flaming copper, the ends curled lazily at the edge of your neck, fluttering with each breath, trembling as your pulse flickered ragged through your veins. You looked so different with short hair. Younger. Almost like a child.

And standing beside the bed I stared down at you, I forced myself to look; at the shadows coiled in the bruised hollows about your eyes, the scars arcing down the side of your neck shining pale in the firelight. At the jut of your collarbones, stark against your wasted chest, naked and vulnerable beneath the covers.

And I wanted you to wake up.

And I wanted you to sleep.

And I wanted you to die.

Because what could I say? How could things ever go back to the way they were? What could I say to take back so many years of pain?

What could I possibly say?

So in that moment I said nothing, just stood there staring like a statue carved of coldest marble, of grief etched in flesh and bone and made infinite. Your eyes rolled beneath your closed eyelids, wandering lost in some fever-dream, and I wondered if you knew where you were, that you were safe. I wondered if you knew I was here.

I wondered if you knew how much it hurt to look at you.

For a moment I closed my eyes, drew in one shaking breath, and I reached up and plucked the crown from my head, its golden hue shining softly in the candlelight, wrought strands of metal glinting between my pale fingers. It was yours by birthright, I had never wanted it, (I don't ever want to touch it again) until a cruel turn of fate thrust it upon my head, a golden crown worn to remind me of my sorrow, to remind me of how I failed, a brother sold to the darkness while I walked under the sun. Slowly turning the crown in my hands, suddenly I felt sick, nausea coiling hard in my stomach and I set it down hurriedly on your bedside table, my fingers trembling so hard I nearly dropped it. The sound of metal against wood rang loud and dull through the tent, and as it did you flinched, in some dream reflex you recoiled, twisting under the sheets. A soft whimper escaped your lips, like a beaten dog whines before its master in dread anticipation of abuse, of pain, curling up in what instinctive, pitiful protection it can muster.

And I turned to go, nausea still roiling in my guts, guilt clawing up through me, the knife twisted in the festering wound, and suddenly I couldn't hold it back, I couldn't stop it, and there alone I whispered my shame to the void of the night. And I knew it was stupid and I knew it was pointless but I said it anyway; and I hoped somehow that you would hear me, and I hoped that you would hate me (because I deserve this), in a low and quavering voice I said it like a prayer:

"I'm so sorry."

And I turned on my heel, choking back a sob caught tightly in my throat, but before I could take a step, I heard you. Your voice was hoarse and faint and barely more than a whisper but your words ripped right through me like you screamed them.

"M..Maglor?... Brother? It's alright…it…it wasn't your fault…"

And I couldn't look at you, I just couldn't and I…

"Please, brother…it wasn't your fault…_please_…don't…"

There was something desperate in your voice, something quiet and forlorn but urgent, and I wanted you to stop, I wanted you to just _shut up _because you couldn't be saying this, you couldn't. I left you to die in their hands, you, my brother to be the victim, the toy for all their games. I left you there and I couldn't save you, and I do not deserve your kindness. I could hear the crack in your voice, the tears falling down your cheeks, in rivulets silver and silent flowing from your eyes still clasped so tightly shut.

"Maglor…_tornincë…_please…"

And something inside my chest buckled, it felt like the world was collapsing under the weight of my shame, as the hammer of your words cleaved the skies into ruin, the stars shattered and fallen about me, and I could only watch, numbly waiting for the final strike, the words I needed, I feared, I hated to bleed from your lips.

"…I forgive you."

And I broke under the hammer stroke of your words, with such tenderness swung to destroy, to kill, in one fell moment of agony annihilate.

I broke because I knew your words were true.

* * *

Well, I didn't really think a second chapter to this story would ever happen, but it did! It's most probably the end of Maglor's little story, although I've said that before, and here we are. Maglor is not an easy one to write, and I can never do it for long without getting emotionally over-involved in my own story, and then having to take a nice soul-healing break!

I'm genuinely interested in your opinions of my take on this rather skimmed-over moment of the Silmarillion, and as such, reviews shall be forever cherished.


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